INOWROCLAW

INOWROCLAW (Ger. Hohensalza), city in Bydgoszcz province, central Poland. The first documents concerning Jews there date from 1447. By the end of the 16th century there was an organized community headed by a rabbi. Nearly all the Jewish inhabitants were killed when the town was besieged by the army of Stephan *Czarniecki in 1656. In 1681 King *John Sobieski renewed the charter of privileges granted to the community in 1600 which had been lost during the siege; although refused recognition by the municipality, these rights were enforced by the royal authorities. The Inowroclaw community was administered by three elders elected every three years by ballot, cast in the presence of the rabbi and the mayor, each elder holding office for one year. There were 980 Jews living in Inowroclaw and the vicinity in 1765. The right to be tried in Jewish law courts was abrogated after the accession of the territory by Prussia in 1774. In the following year the 145 houses belonging to Jews were destroyed by a fire, and the deteriorating economic situation compelled many Jews to leave. The position improved at the beginning of the 19th century. The Jewish population of Inowroclaw numbered 604 in 1799, 1,265 in 1815, and 1,158 in 1905. With the incorporation of the area in Poland after World War I conditions deteriorated again and by 1939 the community was reduced to 172.

[Nathan Michael Gelber]

Holocaust Period

During World War II Inowroclaw served under the name Hohensalza as the capital of one of the three Regierungsbezirke (districts) in Warthegau. (Before the outbreak of the war, Inowroclaw had 172 Jews. Many of them fled before and just after the Nazi forces entered.) Wilhelm Koppe, the Hoehere SS- und Polizeifuehrer of Warthegau, on Nov. 12, 1939, ordered that the town be made judenrein by the end of February 1940. On Nov. 14, 1939, a transport of Jews, probably including all the remaining Jewish population of Inowroclaw, was taken to *Gniezno and Kruszwica. By the end of 1939 the Jewish community in Inowroclaw had ceased to exist. The community was not reconstituted after World War II.